Edge City

Burnout

20

MAY/17

Friday, April 1, 2011

Genevieve checked in with the Recon Teams to find that today was “skeleton crew” day where all non-essential personnel were helping in the labs, cleaning vandalized gat bots (as the cosmetic damage was far outstripping the technical staff’s maintenance schedules.) Genevieve bound some cleaning spirits to hoses and sponges to help out, before checking through her various responsibilities and heading out.

Kinslton called Pillars, and after he talked to a debtor, he talked to her when she called him right back. Kinslton wanted to know how to get Dan’s soul back without undoing the benefits of Dan selling his soul. Pillars explained that the contract was held by a demon; if Kinslton wanted to know which demon, he would give her access to him and everything in his skin for an hour. He agreed. He also started noticing more black carrion birds around than usual.

Adrian spent time with Emma as she paged through the Kingsport papers, looking for a good house to rent for the summer.

Kryptma showed up at Favian Church with a plastic honeybear container full of a sort of rage gel, so Lydia could down it and let a lycanthropic rage battle her vampiric beast and root it out of her soul, providing anger and energy far beyond her own capacity. Lydia rejected the substance, determined to battle this out on her own, and she did not want to go somewhere in the Umbra to burn it out with quantum energies in a safe environment. Kryptma shrugged and left.

Say Anything

As night approached, Kinslton waited where Indigo had disappeared into the earth. When the vampire emerged, they had a nice chat, then Indigo went to the roadside and seemed to meditate or something equally boring, oriented towards the church.

Adrian had a pleasant conversation with Su, one of the acolytes, discovering she was less religious and more vengeance oriented, and the next stop was surviving monster hunting in Detroit to “earn those bones.” He showed her some magic.

Burr made a glorious salad for supper, and everyone enjoyed it (even though Lydia couldn’t keep her supper down, with the intensity of her inner turmoil.) Burr and Abrams had a good day reviewing the gun collection and keeping an eye on the situation, but at sundown they resumed their “just in case” vigil outside Lydia’s room, their armament supplemented by Anna bringing some one-shot dragon’s breath rounds.

In her meditation, Lydia was riding a shantak out at the umbral edge, a peaceful memory, when Indigo intruded into her mind through their link. They had a heartfelt conversation where she expressed her frustration, anger, and disappointment, and he defended his control of her by saying he felt vulnerable, and wanted her to be happy, and he would have released her slowly instead of this painful scarring rush. He also told her if she continued her “detox” then he would take that as rejection, and not be available to her anymore.

When he left her meditation, she struggled mightily with deciding what to do, then she went ahead and uprooted his vampiric presence inside herself, tearing out parts of herself in the process, but finally freeing herself of his influence.

Outside, Indigo turned and headed into town, so Kinslton headed to the gazebo.

Shiny

Concerned by all the carrion birds hanging around, Kinslton used the Ouijiwatch to contact Genevieve, and she joined him at the gazebo. They determined not all of the birds were real; some were shadows. (Genevieve enchanted a gum wrapper to serve as the translator in talking to the birds.) The birds said they were pursuing a comfortable spot, they didn’t connect it to Kinslton (but the connection was clear to the more clever people.)

Intrigued, they went to the Mirror Van and stepped off Prime, and saw a pollen-like dust emanating from him. Also, his demon grubs were somewhat fatter, and possibly restless. What was about to happen to him?